The Mansion on O Street: A Wonderland in the Heart of DuPont Circle

My time at the Mansion was a fascinating, albeit fairly confusing experience. I had no idea what to expect when I walked in the doors, and what I found was a veritable Wonderland of memorabilia, knick knacks, and art pieces of incredible beauty and worth. The hardest part, (aside from being on my feet all day) was finding my way around the place. The labyrinth created by the interconnected rooms, passageways, and secret doors provides enough to disorientation to keep a person wandering for hours. Not to mention the near infinite amount of unique objects that line the walls, which together with the house itself, should keep a person distracted until the next millennium. It was nice to know that as lost as I was, there were 3 other interns and a large group of children who were equally confused.  I took my time to explore the museum, learning all of the various rooms, hallways, and secret doors.  I also spent a lot of time familiarizing myself with the myriad of historic and valuable guitars that have found their way to the Mansion over the last 30 years.

The Mansion itself is actually an unassuming series of 5 townhouses just off of DuPont Circle.  The original structure, so the story goes, was built in the early 1890s by Edward Clark, the architect of the U.S. Capital, for use by him and his two brothers, Champ Clark and "the artist."  The building consisted of three townhouses that shared a common ground floor, with separate living spaces on the upper floors.  According to the narrative resented by the Mansion (which should be noted does not present acceptable sources for this information) the Mansion was then inhabited by J. Edgar Hoover's G-men in the 1930s, who then proceeded to trash the place.  On Valentine's Day, 1980, the Mansion's current owner, H., purchased the original building and began the process of converting it into its unique Hotel-Museum hybrid.  She bought the townhouse next door and built another, bringing the total count to five.  In addition, she installed over 70 secret doors that connect rooms, hallways, staircases, cabinets, and other wonders.

H. has also tried to make the Mansion into a haven for artists and creatives, who, through the Mansion's Artist-in-Residency program, can stay for free while they work on their art.  Many have come through on their visits to the nation's capital, but the pride of the program would have to be the decade-long stay of civil rights leader Rosa Parks, who's room of choice now bears her name.  

A Brief History on Pleasant View Historic Site

The central aspect of my internship involved archiving the paper material and records related to Pleasant View Historic Site. This process ensures the longevity of Pleasant View’s historical records and its significance in African American history in Montgomery County, MD. Through this process, I was able to delve into Pleasant View’s history and unravel the story of this significant church. Pleasant View Historic Site is located on Rt. 28 towards Darnestown in Gaithersburg, MD.

In 1868, Thomas Neverson, George W. Johnson and Charles Beander originally purchased the three-acre property that Pleasant View resides on for $54. The original deed specifies that this land be used for the sole purpose of establishing an African American Methodist Episcopal Church. During the aftermath of the Civil War and the emancipation of slaves, African American churches, like Pleasant View, quickly emerged to create self-sufficient communities and advance the quality of life for African Americans. In 1868, Pleasant View built a one-room schoolhouse to serve as the congregation’s place of worship, community gatherings, and educational facility. This schoolhouse remained the center of Pleasant View’s community until 1888, when the first original church structure was erected.  By the turn of the century, Pleasant View’s community consisted of a new church, schoolhouse and cemetery.

 In 1902, the Montgomery County Board of Commissions commissioned the building of a new white school directly across the road from Pleasant View. The old white school was then given to Pleasant View to replace their old schoolhouse. This schoolhouse still stands and is known as the Quince Orchard Schoolhouse. In 1914, a new church was built and during the 1950s extensive improvements were made to the church structure. In 1968, dwindling membership forced Pleasant View Methodist Church to merge with two other white Methodist Churches in the area, Hunting Hill and McDonald Chapel to form Fairhaven Methodist Church. This congregation still worships about a mile down the road from Pleasant View’s original site. Finally, in 1985, the Historic Preservation Commission added Pleasant View Historic Site to the Master Plan for historic preservation.

Pleasant View's history represents the story of African Americans communities in Maryland and provides insight into the African American experience during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 

The Bridgwater Collection & the Responsibility to Construct a Plural American Story

Samuel Bridgwater was born in Smith County, Tennessee in 1861 to enslaved parents. By 1880, he was a Buffalo Soldier, having enlisted in the 24^th Infantry Regiment. He was stationed at various forts in the west for the better part of a decade, and married Mamie Anderson in 1892 at Fort Huachuca, located in Arizona Territory. Private Bridgwater also fought in the Spanish-American War; he was injured on San Juan Hill, and suffered from yellow fever in the Philippines.

After the war, Samuel and Mamie settled in Helena, Montana—where they raised their family of seven and became involved in the small but active local African American community. Their family home is on the National Register of Historic Places. Octavia, one of Samuel and Mamie’s daughters, followed in her father’s footsteps and served in an all-Black unit of the Army Nurse Corps during World War II. She returned to Helena after the war, and worked as a community nurse midwife.

In the last few weeks of my internship at the National Museum of American History (NMAH), I was tasked with beginning the accessioning and cataloging work of a portion of the Bridgwater Collection. The papers of the collection remained in the purview of the Archives Center; in the Division of Home and Community Life (HCL), I had the task of researching and cataloging personal effects and home furnishings. I happily spent hours in the division’s secured storage areas with the Bridgwater family Bible, Octavia’s purses, multiple sets of family china, tablecloths, napkins, silverware. One of the objects I was most interested in was Octavia’s nurse’s cap. I saw it in the Objects Processing Facility, and assisted with transporting it to collections storage. However, I did not get to catalog it, as it was moved from HCL to the Division of Medicine and Science.

To be clear, collections work is time intensive and is for the detail-oriented. As I mentioned in my first blog post, I was (and am) interested in both collections (the physical objects) and the work of collections management, so I appreciated this opportunity. The storage areas are large and they were quiet (except for the music from my various Pandora stations). Outfitted with archival pens, tags, gloves, and a digital camera, I truly enjoyed interacting with the objects, looking at the various patterns on the tablecloths and napkins, and researching specific china patterns to ensure correct classification in the collections management database.

In addition to being a beneficial learning experience, working with the Bridgwater Collection helped me to begin answering a question that had been lingering in the back of my mind throughout my internship. Walking through the Object Project exhibit, there is a window through which I could see the new National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) taking shape as its grand opening approached. I wondered how NMAAHC’s opening would impact (if at all) NMAH’s collecting and its collections. I was concerned that NMAH would defer to NMAAHC in collecting African American objects and stories, which would negatively impact NMAH’s ability to tell a plural narrative. Working with this newly acquired collection, and learning of other possible future acquisitions gave me some reassurance that there are curators who are committed to telling an inclusive American story. I hope this commitment continues.

Collections Internship with Save Our Seminary: Post 2

The newly renovated Greek Revival gymnasium, which now houses 

condominium units, greets visitors when they enter the National 

Park Seminary historic district. Not too long ago, the 

magnificent building was decaying from neglect. (Rebecca Gale)

As I relayed in my last post, I have been completing an internship with the historic preservation nonprofit Save Our Seminary (SOS), based in Forest Glen, which is responsible for the rescue and restoration of the historic National Park Seminary campus. SOS maintains an archive of objects important to the seminary’s history, and I’ve had the chance to aid with organizing parts of the collection to make it more accessible. 

While my first task was filing slides in archivally safe sleeves, my second project was sorting and filing an extensive set of photos depicting the gradual decay and long-awaited restoration of the historic buildings over the course of two decades. The bulk of the photos were taken by my internship supervisor, a historic preservationist and the executive director of SOS, who has been documenting the state of the campus since before most of us undergraduates were even in existence.

The end result of my project: Two and a half feet of binders
filled with hundreds of photos! Each binder houses photos of
a specific building or sculpture, placed in chronological
order to show change over time.

This collection has amounted to hundreds of photos and dates back to 1990. My job has been to sort photos into categories based on what building or object is pictured and place them into archival sleeves in chronological order so that it will be easy to trace the development of each building over time. Going through the photos has been fascinating, and their existence is a testament to the dedication of people who care about the stories that historic spaces tell, even when they no longer showcase their beauty as originally intended. I remember driving past the seminary campus when it was a tangle of weeds; it’s easy to forget the horrific state of the place looking at its pristine, glowing stucco today.

Some of the photos from the collection, depicting one building (a dorm during
the school era) before and during restoration. You can see the historic fireplace
that was preserved throughout the process. (Photos by Bonnie Rosenthal,
courtesy of Save Our Seminary)

This photo collection is a reminder of the victory that has been won in saving one American treasure and restoring it to life. Whenever I set foot on the seminary campus now, I think back to the mind-boggling images of decay – floors falling down, entire walls sagging, stones buckling, roofs caving in, fires being put out – and my heart warms to see a dream realized in front of me, the dream of a group of people committed to a place that spoke to them. The seminary is a reminder to keep fighting for the preservation of historic places because their story deserves to be told and they are meant to be a site of life once again.

• Read my first post on interning with Save Our Seminary.
• Visit Save Our Seminary's website to learn more about the site's history as well as upcoming events, tours, and lectures.

Internship Post #2

So far the internship in the library has been going very well, I have been working on a variety of different things that involve exhibits and presentations. Never before had I known what it was like putting the actual exhibit posters up, I did that this past month and editing the exhibits is quite time consuming because of constant mistakes that are made, such as grammatical errors and rewrites. One of the main problems that I have personally had with the exhibits, and this all started with the Pleasant View exhibit that our 400 level public history class made, was the fact that there is so much great content that us as students were able to find, but the majority of it had to be removed because all of that cannot fit in a poster. What goes on the poster has to be the most important and it has to be precise. At times that is very frustrating because as an intern I want to do the best possible job I can but also impress my superiors by provinding stellar information, but that information unfortunately gets left behind. Another thing that one most be very careful when physically putting the actual exhibit posters up, is the fact that they have to lined up symmetrically. Since I am very short I have to grab a stool and work my way around the posters without damaging them and using a ruler in order to make them align. It does feel rewarding seeing an exhibit one has worked on, be displayed for everyone to see. These past two weeks, my fellow intern, Camilla and I have been working on this thing called Neatline through this website that deals with exhibits, called Omeka. She did a fantastic job of listing and summarizing the exhibits and partnerships Priddy Library has had and made since the early 1990s. This Neatline allows us to make a map of the school and make a timeline of the events that have transpired throughout the years at the Library.

Internship in the American Red Cross

Over this past summer I had the honor and pleasure to be an Intern for the American Red Cross in the Historic Programs and Collections Department. So what exactly did I have to do for the organization? Firstly, I was involved with the re-housing of the materials in the archives. Archives and the items inside the archives are more active than one might think, especially with the Red Cross Headquarters undergoing renovations and other factors such as a water pipe bursting across the hall. This meant a lot of boxes being piled up on top of each other, giving the potential for serious damage to the artifacts. So my first job was spent in the small archives moving boxes around so some of the weight would not be on the back wall, which is where some of the older items that the Red Cross has were housed, such as Clara Barton’s letters and diaries. Secondly, I would give tours to visitors to the Red Cross headquarters. The tours would be about a half hour long and incorporated paintings, quilts, and a trowel. If you are interested in a tour they are completely free, Wednesday s and Fridays at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. During my summer at the Red Cross I gave tours to over 50 people from all over the world. Finally, I would help with some public inquiries. For example, someone would email my supervisor, Susan asking about someone in their family. One that sticks out in my mind is someone asking about their father who was a doctor with the Red Cross during World War I. I went into out files and found that that doctor went to Belgium, France, Germany, and England during the War. The doctor only told his family that he went to France, so they were surprised to hear about the other countries that he went to. Overall, it was an extremely rewarding summer for me in more ways than one.

Above is the largest of three object rooms of the American Red Cross Archives.